What are you reading?
Cookie is reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. The Harris series is the basis for the HBO show, True Blood.
The Charlaine Harris books are available at National Bookstores, P299 for the mass-market paperbacks. We got six of the books at the last sale for P239 each. Cookie managed to save them from the flood that swallowed the ground floor of her house. They were still in their plastic shrink-wrap so they were only slightly damaged. Here is the view from the second floor.
While awaiting rescue she kept her sanity by reading Dead Until Dawn and Living Dead In Dallas, and cross-stitching “The mayor is useless”.
I finally cracked open 2666 by the late Chilean author Roberto Bolaño.
Paperback available at NBS, P555.
For a doorstop it is a surprisingly easy read. Bolaño is not bothered by problems of construction like “How do you introduce information that has seemingly nothing to do with anything else in the novel?” For starters it is actually five books. The author left instructions for 2666 to be divided into five books and published over five years, but his literary executor decided to publish it in a single volume.
This may not be what Bolaño had wished, but the disobedience of literary executors has served us in the past. If Max Brod had followed the instructions in his friend’s will, Franz Kafka’s works would’ve been incinerated.
Casualty of the flood: My review copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which drowned in my brother-in-law’s car. Typhoon Ondoy was a literary critic.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 5th, 2009 at 04:20
I’m reading Graham Greene’s The Comedians. I bought the book at National for less than 100 pesos, woohoo! Parang Pilipinas din pala ang Haiti.
October 5th, 2009 at 06:03
“Casualty of the flood: My review copy of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which drowned in my brother-in-law’s car. Typhoon Ondoy was a literary critic.”
This cracked me up! hahahaahah!
October 5th, 2009 at 06:06
dreams from my father by the guy with the funny ears. i am such a groupie.
October 5th, 2009 at 09:13
I’m actually reading Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”. I bought it here at my local bookstore in Brasilia for the equivalent of P1,102. Seems there was a conspiracy to have his new book launched simultaneously around the world! I’ve read all of his previous books–and I too was appalled at how badly written “The Da Vinci Code” was!
I finished reading Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, which was dry to begin with, but which I couldn’t put down after a while. The tattooed punk computer prodigy Lisbeth Salander is an interesting character. I now want to read his next book “The Girl Who Played With Fire” but can’t find it here in English (only in Portuguese).
Been closely following the floods in the Philippines, and constantly calling my friend on Skype to make sure he’s okay in Nueva Ecija. After a 10-day strike by the post office here, we’ve now had a bankers strike for two weeks, which means no Western Union remittances can leave Brazil.
October 5th, 2009 at 13:06
I’m still stuck with Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews. Alternating it with Raymond Chandler’s Short Cuts and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours.
October 5th, 2009 at 14:26
Reading 2666, too! That and “Seeing” by Jose Saramago and “Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness” by Kenzaburo Oe. I bought the Oe book (consists of four of his novellas) in the NBS sale last year, but only started on it last week.
October 5th, 2009 at 15:03
Currently reading Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley. Really interesting read, never thought pre-WWII german teenagers are that highly promiscuous, and sexually liberated :D
October 5th, 2009 at 16:58
Typhoon Ondoy being a literary critic also cracked me up big time! Nobody could’ve said it any better!
October 5th, 2009 at 18:59
Been reading Magic Seeds by V.S. Naipaul. Bought it at NBS SM Pampanga during the sale for less than 90 pesos. Started reading it during last week’s flood.
October 6th, 2009 at 00:23
I’m halfway through reading David Byrne’s awesome travelogue The Bicycle Diaries. It was great to read through the chapter on The Philippines as the Talking Heads frontman went on the Imelda Marcos historical tour. I laughed out loud at his anecdote at the karaoke bar which involved a Bon Jovi-looking wannabe and Burning Down The House.
It was also great to read from the book that he gave you mad props for the publications you edit.
October 6th, 2009 at 07:46
Alternating between the John Berger’s selected essays (ed. Geoff Dyer) and Doris Lessing’s The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog.
October 6th, 2009 at 08:07
Been reading Ripley’s game by Patricia Highsmith, The Rachel papers by Martin Amis and Bleeding Hearts by Ian Rankin.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:00
No matter how badly written, The Lost Symbol was a welcome diversion from the terrible inflight movie starring Ben Stiller which, coincidentally, was set at the Smithsonian.
A vivid narrative on the collapse of the Roman Republic, Rubicon by Tom Holland presently holds a special place on my nightstand and has to be savored one gripping chapter at a time.
I’ve always had this gnawing feeling that Catholicism, i.e. the Bible, is medieval and archaic. Bhagavad-Gita, while ancient, is timeless and modern.
October 7th, 2009 at 15:40
Been switching between “To Kill a Mockingbird” (a re-perusal) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories,” which I got from NBS’s recent sale for just Php 99.00. During traffic, I randomly open Matthew Sweeney’s “Selected Poems” (which I also got from the Powerbooks Big Sale): Cape’s poetry books are nicely laid out–one poem per page, so you can just pick a poem with your eyes closed, much like bibliomancy.
October 7th, 2009 at 18:59
I’m reading “Reading Lolita in Tehran” which I recently bought for 115 pesos at the MoA Book Sale store during the MIBF.
I can’t find any copy of 2666 ANYWHERE. Where’d you get your copy?
October 8th, 2009 at 11:25
Reading Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: an introduction by JD Salinger.